Developers usually want to be able to directly connect to a system, start the debugger, and step their way through the code. Being able to log into a machine and debug is the way most of us learn to troubleshoot and fix issues. But what if you can’t do that? And what if I told you there’s a better way to debug?

In the past, ARC has a feature that enabled it to change the minimum number of runners based on a schedule: ScheduledOverrides. When ARC was modernized, this feature was not included in the new version. This isn’t an oversight. Instead, it’s a recognition that Kubernetes has a built-in feature that can handle this task: CronJob. Learn how to use the CronJob resources to change the settings for ARC scale sets on a schedule.

Actions Runner Controller (ARC) is a powerful way to manage ephemeral, self-hosted GitHub runners. If you’re considering ARC or starting to deploy it, there are five key things to know if you want to be successful using it.

There’s a lot happening under the covers with Kubernetes. If you really want to master your Kubernetes environment, it begins with understanding the value of a logging and how to implement good logging practices.

Scaling systems is a process that is often counter-intuitive. It’s not just about adding more resources. It’s about understanding the bottlenecks and how to overcome them. After years spent troubleshooting highly scaled systems, I’ve learned a few things that can make the journey easier.

What are the best practices best practices for upgrading your ARC cluster? Want to know whether you can safely run without taking the latest releases? In this post, we’ll explore the answers to both of these questions.

If you’re using Actions Runner Controller, the provided base image may not be enough. In fact, it’s important to build your own to ensure that you have all the dependencies you need for your workflows.

Minimizing network activity improves your build times, speeds up builds, and reduces costs. With ARC, you rely on multiple Actions steps in your workflow. What if you could avoid needing to download your most frequently used Actions? This post walks you through creating images with an Actions archive cache to eliminate those downloads.

If you’re going to build custom images for ARC or standalone VM runners, then you probably want to take some time to preload it with the tools that matter to your builds. If you want that process to work well for the GitHub-provided tools and actions/setup- Actions, then you’ll want to know how to prepopulate the runner’s tool cache.

Understanding ARC begins with understanding what it does (and does not do) to create runners on Kubernetes. The process is surprisingly straight-forward, and understanding it is key to mastering ARC.